Impossible Surprise
by Fou-LeChat
Summary: Ghis knew he was dead... Until he saw an ocean, a window, a wall, a room,and making all that racket in the kitchen... was a man rambling something that was NOT English.


On a cold, hallow night in an unknown wood, an old house stood dimly lit. The many windows creaked, the giant tree upon which this house stood rustled with the cold wind. Faintly, a rowdy noise along with a dull, changing light leaked from the porch window, which if one were to fall on the other side of the class, turned to laughter and clapping and whistling from a modest television set . There a girl named as Diane sat and watched with mild amusement.

"Thank you for watching, I'm Michel Zwinsky, and have a good night everyone" the man said as he stared out through the screen.

It was warm and lazy in the house, with only the low volume of the television causing any sound. Diane sat and watched the television to pass the time, too indolent for anything more involving. A game show was however hardly her idea of time-whisking entertainment, and she often found herself staring at the Grandfather clock standing beside the washroom door to see the time of night. At least they didn't have the bullshit annoyance of television's other options.

She looked over the window this time, and wished for it to snow just enough to make the evening a slight more spectacular.

Within a few moments, it was snowing, lightly and softly.

A pitter-patter of tiny feet stepped with a slight echo, and two cats peeked around the corner from the open kitchen. Mei and Ma often sneaked around in this manner, eyeing witnesses to anything and everything that happened in their domain, sometimes seeking to do foul play upon unsuspecting guests. Rightfully so, both looked the kind of the crafty feline, Mei a vainly blue-eyed Siamese, and Ma a sharp but playful red-eyed Bombay. They shared no blood between them; Mei was older than Ma, yet these two worked side-by-side as if they were brother and sister.

On this night, however, their ardor for mischief was as put out as their master's motivation, and after a few lazy, dumb looks around the room, they finally trotted to Diane where Mei hopped beside her shoulder, Ma her lap, purring and purring with relaxed pleasure. Mei did not purr – she more like sighed with her larynx, and in fact, despite her breed Mei hardly made much noise at all. Wise for being a snoop, and a very convenient thing for one like Diane who was staying alone in a large, eloquent treehouse.

A half an hour more passed. Diane finally pressed the 'off' button on the channel changer, yawning, rubbing her hands all over her face. She stretched out her arms and her legs as she moaned, tired. The grandfather clock rang the thirty minute time: eleven-thirty, Diane read. She stroked Ma unconsciously, staring down at the wooden floor in a groggy gaze. The night being this late, there was no other preferable option but to go to bed.

She lazily looked down at Ma, gleaming a smile, and nudged the cat up and off as she stood.

"Alright... C'mon, kitties" She walked over to the lights, flipping the switch.

A loud clank against wood and metal sounded from outside, and the lights were instantly switched back on. Diane looked over to the door, half unnerved and half bewildered, as stumbling steps sounded onto the porch. Then the door banged with three hard slams. Mei and Ma began screaming and calling with boisterous meows, as if warning their master of danger, or scare the danger away.

The door pounded again, this time lighter and somewhat more desperate. Diane curiously eyed the door, and was perplexed. There should have been no one except herself out here in these woods. The crowded town out in the ocean was where most people went, and if not, the rest were seafarers docked near the beach, miles off from her house. The woods were in disregard to the town, with the exception of the seafarers, who hardly had reason to go into the woods themselves.

Diane slowly walked to the door, grabbing her gun from under the book shelf standing beside the television. She took her coat, placed the gun in the inside pocket, then wrapped her neck in a scarf accounting for the weather. Another few bangs hammered.

She opened the door just wide enough to see the intruder's face – a face that was boiling and charred on one side, consuming some hairline. The door was thrown even wider: the man was gasping, in pain, gripping the door panel with one hand as if he were about to fall flat on the porch. Diane stared in waiting for the man to look up. He did; the eye of his burned side was closed shut, but his other was hard and fighting unconsciousness as he met Diane's gaze. He quickly put a slightly quivering hand over his wound, whether to block it from view or to cradle it in pain, though the back of his hand itself was has charred as his face. She noticed the grey hair and aged wrinkles where his skin was unharmed.

Diane stood motionless for another moment, waiting for him to speak, or any indication that she _should_ let him into her house. Heartless it may have seemed, Diane wasn't sure if he may have already been dead. Though if he were dead, he would not be here on the front of her house, and if he were some sleeping soul in a nightmare, he would not even be in town.

After her moment's pause, Diane stepped back into the house, her face to the door – and then he reached out, snatching her arm and holding it tightly with a begging grip. Diane whipped her eyes to an arm with a singed, puffed sleeve. At his touch, she did not shiver, nor felt a wave of ghostly sorrow that would normally come with the presence of the dead. His hand was warm. Warm, and unmistakably living flesh.

".....Please.....!" he breathed. Diane looked back at his face, his eyes now wavering with his strength. She grabbed his arm, dragging him into the house.

The man nearly screamed"...My arm, you bloody dolt..!" he rasped angrily. Mei and Ma had sat looking around Diane's legs, and scurried away in an excited frenzy as she carried the man in. Both slid under the kitchen table set next to a barren wall, where they peeked from around the corner, Ma pawing over Mei's head. Diane rushed through the kitchen and down the left hall, grabbing sheets from the small end closet, bandages and gauzes from the first aid box which she kept in the pantry. She rushed back, Mei and Ma following with their intrigued gazes, unwinding the bandage roll while the man heaved in pain.

"What's your name?" she asked close to his ear, taking off the odd, wing like plates over his shoulders. The man's lips cracked to speak, but she did not wait for him to reply. Taking note of his angry shout, and the missing glove which would've matched his left hand, Diane took his arm and ripped open the sleeve. The front skin up to his elbow was burned red and black as well.

"Where else does it hurt?" she calmly asked. His hand crawled to his side, and came to his leg. Diane cut through his shirt, then the sleeve of his pants.

She turned to the unrolled line of bandage, sizing it up to the length of the burns. She ran to the bathroom, shuffling through medicines, bandaids, eyedrops and a thermometer, with no avail of finding another roll.

At this thought, Diane realized the burns were too serious for her to care alone. She needed a doctor – _he_ needed a doctor, and _soon._

The feline duo ducked under the table again as Diane streamlined to the kitchen and looked to a piece of paper with a name and phone number scribbled in neat cursive on the refrigerator door.

She took the phone and pressed in the buttons. About the third ring, a rough and rumbling male voice picked up, "_Gah, stupid idiot, qui -êtês vous de.....?!"_

" _Monsieur Rossau, C'est moi, Diane"_

"_Ehh? Qu'est-ce que tu veux très beaucoup que tu me réveilles á la _nuit!"

" _J'ai besoin d'aide, monsieur. J'ai un homme qui est brûlure très beaucou..."_

"_Attendes!...Comment est-ce que c'est mal ? "_

"_Beaucoup du droit de son corps est brûlure, euhh... dégrée troisième ! "_

There was a pause of clanging noise away from the phone, sounding as if Monsieur Rossau was stuffing his medical bag.

"_....Tu as les bandages ?"_

"_Oui, mais ça n'est pas assez -" _

"_Je venais vite. Emballes-lui, maintient"_

"_Merci beaucoup"_

Monsieur Rossau replied with an assuring grunt, and the phone went silent. Diane squatted beside the poor man, laying cloths over his body as she started to wrap his face with a gauze placed on his eye. He was still breathing heavily, but slowly going unconscious.

"A doctors coming, alright?" she said quickly. He gave a weak nod.

* * *

Mei and Ma both sat side by side on the head of the couch as they curiously watched Diane finish wrapping the new stranger's arm. Their tales swished, and their throats purred, completely intrigued and entertained by this strange event that had unfolded within their house.

Then suddenly, their ears perked, as a clanging, jittering sound echoed out from the darkness of the woods. The cats sprinted to the window, looking out with eager looks.

A few moments more, and the headlights of an old vaudeville era car soon shone through the darkness, rapidly parking outside the front of the house. Diane knew it was Monsieur Rossau, as Mei and Ma never called out a guest that was familiar to them. She tucked the remaining bandage over the man's arm, and ran out to greet him. Rossau, a plump and cheeky man, nearly fell face first on the ground as he tugged and stumbled clumsily out of the car.

"_Comment est ça, sa condition? __"_ Diane simply took him by the arm up the porch, showed him his patient, who was now again awake from a second slip into unconsciousness. Rossau quickly examined his unwrapped wounds, and returned Diane's apprehension with a quick nod.

"_Je regrette, Diane, mais je ne peux pas l'aider ici. Nous devons aller á la ville" _He said briskly. Opening his bag, Rossau took out a fresh roll of bandage, unrolling it onto his hand; Mei and Ma had trotted over to Rossau to greet him themselves, rubbing their soft fur against his legs of his pants, "_J'ai un ami qui peut l'aider mieux que moi"_ He cut off his share of the bandage, handing the roll to Diane.

"_Emballes-lui ! Vite, Vite !" _

He and Diane worked as quickly as they could diligently, wrapping around the man's burned side and leg and removing the random pieces of strange armor in which he wore to try easing some if not a little of his discomfort. Mei and Ma continued to scour the two, now meowing relentlessly as if they could not keep in their inquisitive nature any longer. As Diane and Rossau exchanged urgent words in French, Diane noticed the man's eye looking from Rossau to her.

"_Parlez, Monsieur, parlez! Il nous écoute " _

The two rambled on even more, soon deviating from the man's wounds onto whatever came off the top of their heads: recent events in the Town, the "_odieux_" psychology of cats (which at that point, Rossau had most irritably requested Diane to tend to the two felines. Diane threw them their favorite toy, luring them away from the living room). Once the man's wounds were wrapped, Rossau ran out to the back of his car, pulling out a folded cloth stretcher which he carried swiftly into the house and laid it beside the couch. Rossau took hold of the man's legs as tenderly as he could manage, the man suddenly growling lowly and began mumbling incoherently in pain. Diane did the same, taking the stranger under his arms and trying not to agitate his right limb.

"_À trois. Un, deux...Trois!" _

Both heaved the pained man off the couch and gently down, lifting each end of the handles with some difficulty. Mei and Ma followed them out to the porch, sitting attentively beside the open door as Diane and Rossau cautiously carried him down the porch and lifted him into the car. Doors slammed, Rossau hurriedly strided to the front and rounded the crank. Diane forced the cats back into the house, closing and locking the door behind them then back to the car where she scurried into the passenger seat. A clicking hum rose into the air, Rossau joining Diane at the wheel, practically throwing in the door as he closed it.

"_Combien du temps?" _Diane asked ugrently.

"_J'irai aussi vite que je peux, mais au moins une demi-heure " _She blew out a frustrated huff.

"_Est-ce que tu sais comment il a été brûlé ?" _

"_Non, il est juste arrivé á ma maison. D'ou il est venu, je ne sais pas "_

A loud, sharp breath from the back snapped Diane's attention. The man had turned his head, eyes closed and a face cringing.

"That.... damned... stone..." he croaked.

"_Qu'est-ce qu'il dit?" _Rossau asked. Rossau, though he was fluent in German and in Russian, had never learned English in his lifetime, and was often stuck calling Diane as a translator. There were others of course, but he knew Diane well. He always preferred friends over strangers.

"_Je ne sais pas. Quelque chose d'un pierre"_

"_Demandes-lui. Il doit être éveillé"_

Diane pulled out half way into the back, reaching close enough so that he could hear her. The man slowly turned his head back and forth, squirming with shallow breath as if he was drowning.

"What stone?" she asked in a low voice.

"...The Dawnshard..." he croaked.

A bemused eyebrow crawled up Diane's forehead, "...You would not know... of it..." he continued.

"Yeah, I wouldn't... What did the 'Dawnshard' do ?"

"Ah-ahhh..." his voice cracked in pain, "Do you know...ugh...of an airship...ssSSH... named the Leviathan...?"

"...An air..ship?" Diane answered questionably. The man's grimace faded, his eye refocusing on Diane with an angry and offended look.

"Yes... an airship...!" he exclaimed. Diane remained quizzical, the curved eyebrow high above her eye.

"Uhhhh... never you mind..." he sighed, "there was an... explosion.... The engine room... lost control..." the man took in a heavy breath, "... the stone...overloaded the system..." he paused for another moment. Diane knew it would not be long before his third blackout, "...Your name, I believe...is Diane...?"

She nodded, saying with a slow tone "Mm-hm. Diane Gloria Gremington."

"Hmhm...quite a title... " he laughed, "And...that man... you call him 'Rossau'...?"

"_Oui?"_ Rossau said back thinking he had been called for.

"Yes, _Monsieur_ Rossau".

"...And ... we are in Dalmasca... are we not...?"

She again looked blank, unsure how to answer him. As she and Rossau had feared, he was getting to the point of delusion.

"Oh, yes..." he whispered, "...the Leviathan...you asked about her..."

"_Monsieur, il relâche sa conscience !"_

"_Nous sommes seulement un moment de distance ", _the car jolted violently as it went through a puddle hole. Diane shook the man with a gentle might. His good eye jumped, looking dazedly at Diane. He breathed in several times before he spoke, trying to fight for his consciousness, "I must return... to Arcadia...and...explain the...incident... " , then his eyes suddenly grew very wide, fearful and realizing. The car jolted again, this time landing down with a soft spray of sand.

"Oh, Gods, ...the fire..." he pulled up his bandaged arm. It seemed for the first time he actually saw the fabric encasing his body.

The sand turned to wooden planks. Diane calmly watched the man's eyes slowly close as if lulling into a slumber. He looked up, straight at her eyes, "...nothing but ash..."

Then his head went limp as the car stopped. Rossau climbed out immediately, opening the back door to Diane sighing pitifully, who looked to Rossau with her face full of frustration.

"_Sortez et aidez-moi, Diane. __Vitement_" Rossau said calmly. Diane did as he asked, leaping to his side. Both lugged the stretcher out of the car, carefully onto the boat. Rossau started the engine as swiftly as he did the car crank.

The boat took another half hour at top speed to arrive at the Town dock, where Rossau's friend, who Diane knew to be French Canadian, and a crew of aiding doctors and nurses waited at the ready. Rossau and his friend exchanged a few quick words, a giggle and some note of caution, before the group carried the man up to the dock and down the main street of town. At the near middle stood the hospital, which was more of a medical hotel than a hospital in Diane's opinion. It was a small two storey (as there was hardly ever any urgent medical need) each bedroom within decorated with European architecture and scenery. Inside its street block was an Amazonian courtyard which was open to anyone who needed some privacy, patient or non-patient.

However, the man would not and could not stay in the hospital. Rossau and Diane, having known the doctor's lax personality and his similarly relaxed crew, arranged for had the man to be transported to Rossau's apartment after the necessary surgeries and medical attention were attended to. A day later, the two carried the man slowly into Rossau's salon, where the man was laid on the patient's bed Rossau had special for the critical conditioned.

"_Il doit rester sur les médicaments pendant quelque temps. Nous ne voulons pas la douleur le rendant folle comme il a presque fait_ " he had said to Diane, and gently nudged the IV into the man's good hand. Diane watched with a sour face, rubbing her hand preciously.

The next morning, Diane left the apartment to return to her grandmother's home for the week, leaving Rossau to care for the man himself. Rossau hardly minded – this gave him not only company but an excuse to his unflattering neighbors of why he was back wreaking his '_chaos passionné' _(their words for his cooking) in his apartment.

* * *

If you can't figure out much of the French, use this translator - trust me, I use if for my language classes, and its a lot better than Google with the major languages : .com/


End file.
